Imagine what kind of movie "Legally Blonde" would have been if the Reese Witherspoon character, underneath that ditsy blonde facade, had actually been ditsy.
That should give you some idea what to expect from "The Price of Beauty," a world tour in search of the international ideals of beauty.
Hosted by Jessica Simpson.
Some might wonder what could possibly create drama in a gig where someone flies you all over the world to get massages and beauty treatments and conduct deep discussions on how to look better.
But Simpson starts the show by declaring that this beauty stuff isn't as easy as it looks.
"The pressure to be beautiful," she says, can become so intense for someone in her position that it's just, well, "too much."
Still, whatever suffering beauty has brought to her life, she's willing to pursue it, and her first stop is Thailand.
Women there, she finds, prize light skin over bronzed skin. So tanning products aren't big, but skin lighteners are - except some are so corrosive they can burn the skin right off.
Simpson and her posse - Ken, her trusted makeup guy, and CaCee, the assistant who makes her laugh - meet a Thai woman permanently scarred from skin cream.
"It hurts me that she has to go through life being angry at herself for trying that lightener," says Simpson.
So next they search for something less acidic: inner beauty. They visit a Buddhist monk, who has them sit cross-legged before him and meditate.
That works out okay until Simpson begins to giggle uncontrollably.
To reach their next stop, they ride an elephant. That may or may not be one of the secrets to beauty in Thailand, but Simpson declares that "it was very empowering."
Oops, we almost skipped the part where Thai model Sonia - host of "Thailand's Next Top Model" - explains that some Thai women like to eat fried crickets and bugs because the amino acids speed up the metabolism, or something like that.
Simpson looks at the trays of fried bugs and admits she was thinking, "Jessica, you can't even eat salmon."
So, yeah, we do learn a lot about international attitudes toward beauty - and Jessica doesn't have to carry the load alone. As the end credits roll, CaCee admits she couldn't stop looking at the monk when they were meditating.
"But it wasn't because I thought he was hot," she says. "Not, like, I wanted to get on him."
Beautiful.
Source:nydailynews.com/
